


Devil's Backbone

by Coldsaturn



Category: Bellarke - Fandom, The 100 (TV)
Genre: Bittersweet, F/M, Hurt/Comfort, I don't know if she dies at the end, Torture
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-06-29
Updated: 2014-06-29
Packaged: 2018-02-06 19:10:06
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,494
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1869135
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Coldsaturn/pseuds/Coldsaturn
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Songprompt: Devil's Backbone by The Civil Wars</p><p>Clarke is taken by the Mountain Men and they're set on finding where Bellamy Blake is. She'd rather die than tell them.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Devil's Backbone

**Author's Note:**

> I also made a video for this. You can find it [here](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kaIuhV0vaFg).

 

_Oh Lord, Oh Lord, what have I done?_

_I've fallen in love with a man on the run._

 

It takes twenty two seconds until Clarke can't hold her breath anymore and inhales ice water. Her lungs contract in a spasm as her whole body jerks against the rough hands keeping her knelt over the water basin. Bubbles of precious air leave her mouth as she coughs and spurts, feeling them rolling along her cheeks.

Clarke closes her eyes, forcing her body to stop shuddering, hoping that it's what will allow her to earn another lungful of air. She lets go of her whole body, leaving the men no choice but hold her up. Her feet keep on twitching and she can’t do a damn thing about it, but it's enough, apparently, because suddenly she’s being pushed back and she falls on her back. Rolling on her side, she throws up warm water and spit, tears stinging her eyes like needles.

 

_Oh Lord, Oh Lord, I'm begging you please._

 

"Care to collaborate, now?" Fuller, the corporal of this wing of the facility, asks in a calm tone. Clarke’s still a little busy with vomiting and the pressure she’s putting on her ribs with each coughing fit, so he doesn't wait for her reply, his voice hovering over her body and echoing in the room.

"You can make this stop, you know? We could become friends even. Just tell us where Bellamy Blake is, and you'll be treated like a guest, instead of a traitor."

 

_Don't take that sinner from me._

 

Once her lungs are empty and she can finally draw a ragged breath in, Clarke dares to look up at him. Fuller rewards her with an open smile, but he still fails at making it look reassuring, with the light hitting his sneer and revealing its real color. Clarke breathes and it feels like her throat is tearing itself open every time she tries to take air in.

That was already the fourth immersion, and with yesterday’s waterboarding she fears her body is starting to give up on her. She needs all her energy to fight her self-preservation instinct, because what’s at stake here is her life in exchange for Bellamy’s. And Clarke has never had a doubt about who to choose.

 

_Oh Lord, Oh Lord, what do I do?_

 

Looking straight into his eyes, she manages to rasp "Go...fuckyou...rself."

His smile dies in an instant and he sighs. "You just don't get what you're risking here, do you? Alright, you've just earned another day in hell. Sanchez, tear away her nails."

 

_I've fallen for someone who's nothing like you. He's raised on the edge of the devil's backbone._

 

Clarke can't recall when it started. The exact moment when something had shifted inside her and she had changed forever, shading her molecules and bone structure in grays where once she had been perfect blacks and crisp whites.

The only thing she knows now is that his face is what she looks for when everything seems to be slipping through her fingers, and reality proves to be just a little bit more monstrous than the day before.

 

_Oh I just wanna take him home._

 

"Who you are and who you need to be to survive are very different things" had been her moral compass from the moment those words had escaped from his lips. Bellamy hadn't been able to straighten her bent and damaged world, but somehow he had given her a way to make it spin, despite everything.

Jasper once joked about him being her knight, after she told him about how he had saved her life when they went to search for him. She believed it for some time, that Bellamy is her knight and she can lean on his shoulder, and trust her life to him, and take for granted his presence beside her. But if Jasper were to ask her in this moment if she still thinks of Bellamy as a knight, she'd have to say no. She’d have to admit that now he's the very axis around which the whole planet spins in existence and self-destruction.

 

_Oh Lord, Oh Lord, he's somewhere between a hangman's knot, and three mouths to feed._

 

"You know, you're the very first friend I've ever had." Bellamy says one night to Clarke, as they watch the stars above them. They're both on guard shift, and for once Clarke is happy to spend some time with him without the immediate pressure of their duty.

"Weren't you close with Octavia on the Ark?" Clarke wonders, more out of curiosity than anything. Knowing that he considers her a friend is a warm blanket, and suddenly December doesn't feel as cold as before.

"Yeah, but it's not the same. She was-is my responsibility, whereas you're free from me. It’s different." If he's feeling self-conscious, he's hiding it very well.

“Well, you’re not my first friend ever, but you sure are the person I trust the most here.” she replies, lowering her gaze to the ground and trying not to sound too embarrassed.

“I wasn’t trying to make it a mutual confession thing.”

“I said it because I wanted to.” She pauses and a sigh exits from her lips in a white cloud. “It’s just that sometimes I think we all rely on you without even saying thanks. Like it’s perfectly normal for you to take care of us.”

“I don’t mind it anymore, but I do think I didn’t have any other choice. You’d have blown up yourself by now.”

Clarke laughs at that, because she thinks the same. When they had arrived on the Earth, everyone had been too hyped up to follow simple logic, and she was just a Princess nobody cared to listen to. Bellamy had been the one who made her a leader together with him. If, after what had happened to Charlotte, he hadn’t agreed on guiding the delinquents together with her, people would have listened to him and today she’d still be a high-class nobody.  
  
“True. But thanks, anyway.” Clarke nudges his shoulder and he bounces back against her, smirking.  
  
“You’re all welcome.”

_There wasn't a wrong or a right he could choose._

_He did what he had to do._

  
She stumbles upon his tent weeks later, after checking the rest of the camp for unusual noises, and hears movements from inside. Initially she thinks that he’s having company like in the old good days, but then there’s a muffled whimper and it doesn’t sound at all like someone who’s having fun.   
  
Clarke can’t muster the courage to check because really, this can get awkward really fast, but then his voice makes again that heartbreaking sound and she’d rather risk interrupting him than hear it once more. She lifts up the end of the tent and peeks inside. He seems alone in the makeshift bed and Clarke sighs in relief, before realizing what it means.   
  
Bellamy’s body shakes under the blanket as another one of his small whimpers makes its way down Clarke’s spine, making her feel like there’s a huge weight on her heart that won’t ever go away. She enters as quietly as she can and crawls to him, touching hesitantly where his shoulders should be. As soon as her hand brushes the fabric and gives it a little pressure, he shudders again and mutters what Clarke really hopes isn’t a “Sorry”, because if he wakes up and finds her teary-eyed next to him, she won’t know what to say.   
  
She moves her hand in a light caress, soothing him as much as she can, whispering that everything is going well thanks to him and that he has nothing to worry about. Aside from the only truth that they’re all alive thanks to Bellamy, Clarke knows that she’s spilling out white lies, but he stops twitching and she feels him relax under her hand. Once she’s sure he’s out of whatever dream he was in, she slips out of the tent and spends the rest of her shift trying to fight back the tears.   
  
She never talks to him about it.

 

_Give me the burden, give me the blame._

_I'll shoulder the load, and I'll swallow the shame._

 

When she wakes up, the pain in her hands takes her breath away and she instantly regrets regaining consciousness.   
  
“Welcome back, Princess.”   
  
Clarke opens her eyes and Fuller is in front of her with his usual composed smile. “Sorry, that nickname is already spoken for, find another one.”   
  
“Mrs.Griffin, this is the very last string of patience you’re pulling. Is Bellamy Blake really more important than your own life?”

 

_Give me the burden, give me the blame._

 

That must be the reason why she had realized what he was for her. The first time they had started interrogating her and she had understood that his life was over if she opened her mouth and told them where he was. Nothing makes you realize your feelings for someone more than your instinctive desire to put yourself between them and the ax. To be the Knight breaking the check on the King.

The first punch sounded like “I care for him.” The first kick, “I won’t give him up.” When they had cut her wrists, making her believe that they would have let her bleed to death if she didn’t talk, that was her first “Better me than him.” When they had told her that her friends were being tortured with her, that was her first “Better anyone than him.”

 

_How many, how many Hail Marys is it gonna take?_

 

“Corporal, have you ever been in love?” Clarke tilts her head, waiting for his answer or, eventually, for his blow. Anything is good, it’s not like she’s in a hurry.   
  
Fuller clears his throat looking behind him, where two guards stands at both sides of the door, waiting for orders. “Is it what you’re telling me? That you love him and would rather die than betray him?” He kneels in front of her, and Clarke shakes her head.  
  
“No, I was merely making some conversation.”  
  
Fuller sighs. “If you’re hoping to make us waste our time, you’re wrong. We’ll kill you, Griffin, and I’m sure that some of your friends will be shocked enough that they will start talking. Perhaps that guy we took last week, what was his name?”

 

_Don't care if he's guilty, don't care if he's not._

 

"F-F...Fi...Finn! That's it. What do you say? Will your death make him talk? They were together when we caught you, right?" He reaches out to touch her chin and Clarke jerks back, hitting the wall behind her with the back of her head.

Fuller laughs softly and moves again towards her, grabbing her hair around the point still pulsating from the hit and pulling hard. "Better now?"

Well, it's true that she can't focus on that pain anymore.

When Clarke feels the fist getting tighter, she nods reluctantly. He gives a tug, forcing her head to follow him.

"Clarke, will he talk if you die?"  
  
“I’m the only one who knows where he is, but you don’t have a single chance of finding that out, whether I’m alive or not.”

“I’ll take that bet.”

 

_He's good and he's bad and he's all that I've got._

 

“Is everything ready?” Bellamy asks, looking anxiously around him, checking that everyone is where they should be. Clarke has never seen him so tense.   
  
“Yes. Raven will guide me, so I can activate the jet engines while you buy us time.”   
  
“Good. Hope it’ll work.” This time his eyes fall on her, his face a mask of worry and helplessness. It’s the face she had imagined he was making that night in his tent, when she had caught him during his nightmare.   
  
It takes two seconds for her to decide that she has to save him no matter what. That whatever this night will bring to them, Bellamy Blake will be the one standing at sunlight. Because he’s the only one who’s really fought for his redemption, who’s stepped towards humanity as they all lost theirs, one piece at a time. Because she has to find a way to take that burden off his shoulders, to give him even one night of peace and dreamless sleep.   
  
“Bell,” She starts, and he gasps in surprise at the nickname. “Before we turn this place into a furnace, I want you to take the tunnel and go away.”   
  
Bellamy stares at her and frowns, as if he can’t understand what she’s saying.   
  
“If you can, take Finn with you, he’s the most diplomatic of us and he can probably help you get a pact with some other clan.”   
  
“Clarke, what ar-”  
  
“Let me finish, please. You can’t really believe that a battle of this proportion won’t attract other tribes. Just think about the Reapers. We will be open to attacks, and if we do survive, we’ll need all the allies we can get. I need you to go and find them.”  
  
Bellamy steps forward and puts his hands on Clarke’s shoulders, a weight matching the one she’s already feeling on her chest. “Clarke, you can’t really ask me to abandon everyone.”  
  
“You’re not! You’re giving us all a chance to survive. You can’t die, Bellamy. We need you, remember? You’re the King here, and as long as there’s a King, there’s game.”  
  
“We’ll switch places. You and Finn go and find who can help us, I’ll stay here.”   
  
“No. I can’t move a whole tribe to fight for me, but you can. You’re the one who inspires people, I can’t have you here risking your life, once we’re done with the Grounders. We will be fine, my plan is rock solid.” She smiles at him and he gulps loudly, tightening his hold on her.   
  
“I’m not happy about this.”  
  
Clarke shrugs, letting his hands fall and wondering for a moment why her heart has jumped in her throat. “You don’t have to be, you just have to do it. Go, gather as many allies you can, and come back.”  
  
“Does Finn know about this?”  
  
“Finn doesn’t need to know everything. You stay out of the dropship, and I will bring you Finn.”   
  
Clarke steps back, letting her gaze takes his face in, thinking that maybe this will be the last time she’ll be this near to him. She doesn’t tell him, or he will never do what she’s asked, but it has been an honor getting to know someone like him. Bellamy drags one hand across his face, looking so much as when they had just lost Charlotte and they had been one step away from hell.   
  
He mutters an almost soundless “Ok.” and goes outside, his shoulders already slumped in defeat. Clarke mouths “May we meet again.” at his back, before returning to Raven.

 

_Oh Lord, Oh Lord, I'm begging you please_

_Don't take that sinner from me._

 

**Author's Note:**

> Edited by my favourite biker and gladiator, [Zoadgo](http://archiveofourown.org/users/Zoadgo/pseuds/Zoadgo)
> 
> Thanks to anyone who will read it, comment it, _kudos it_ , ignore it etc.  
> Feel totally free to contact me here or on [my tumblr](http://coldsaturn.tumblr.com)!


End file.
